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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29161956">All (and more)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihearthings_ii/pseuds/ihearthings_ii'>ihearthings_ii</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Genderfluid Character, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:42:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,007</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29161956</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihearthings_ii/pseuds/ihearthings_ii</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicky contains multitudes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All (and more)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to Adelate for looking this over - I appreciate it. :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They lay low, then scatter. Copley had advised it and, perhaps more aptly, one day Andy had simply looked at Joe and Nicky with a certain look in her eyes, and they had both nodded, and packed what little they had with them. It had been a quiet thing, really - they had hugged each other, and Nile had been left feeling pretty unmoored in the small London rental. </p><p>“Booker will be in Paris,” Andy had said after, as they had settled on the couch with some disgusting protein bars that Andy felt were appropriate substitutions for meals. Nile has had enough of MREs and anything adjacent to last her a lifetime, but she also knows when to choose her battles. </p><p>“The boys - we’ll meet up with them in a year or two, probably.” Nile still feels as if her perception of time is completely off its axis, and it’s hard to wrap her head around. A year or two in her new life is - a week, a minute, a second. Inconsequential. </p><p>A year or two in Andy’s new life, however --- but that’s not up to Nile. She nods. </p><p>“And where should we go?” She asks, and Andy smiles. </p><p>“I’ll show you Mongolia,” she says, “and how to shoot a crossbow from horseback.”</p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>Time passes. In the middle of nowhere, with even less in the way of civilization than in the desert, and with really only Andy and horses as steady companions, Nile finds that it does indeed pass quite quickly. </p><p>This might also have something to do with the long days of training - Andy seems very set on teaching Nile a lot of things she considers lost arts - and the nights where she’s out cold the second her head hits the pillow, exhausted from horseback riding lessons, archery lessons, hunting for dinner, and language lessons while they eat around the campfire. </p><p>Mongolia is beautiful. Admittedly, she hadn’t been thrilled when Andy had said Mongolia at first, but it’s stark and honest, and the life they lead there is simple but gratifying. Grounding. </p><p>Nile feels very far from her old life. When she thinks back on it, it feels as if she’s looking through a mirrorball, as if it’s something that maybe happened to a different Nile. She thinks maybe that was also the point of Mongolia. </p><p>In the early mornings, or at night under the stars, Andy will tell her about the others. About Lykon and the shock of his death, how it had shaken her and Quynh, how their immortality had all of a sudden felt like a fragile, brittle thing. </p><p>She tells Nile about Quynh, and how they searched for her, for how they search for her still. She doesn’t say, but Nile knows what grief sounds like, and her own grief for her own family stirs in her bones, reaches out towards Andy through sinew and gristle. </p><p>Andy tells her about Booker, of his choice to be with his family until the bitter end, and her stories alternate between making him sound like a rascally young boy and a tired old man. Nile only spent a short time with him, but she can see how that would be. Nile feels a little bit the same way in Andy’s company. Old, but very, very young. </p><p>When Andy talks about Joe and Nicky, it’s with such warmth, her little brothers who help her make sense of their path, help her see goodness when she can’t find it anymore. </p><p>Nile sometimes finds herself longing for her new family, almost in the same way she longs for her old one. </p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>Venice is beautiful. She did expect that, but it still hits her harder than she had predicted. She had always felt a little offended when people would scoff at the US, and how young a country it is, how artless, but she feels it, here. Feels it in her bones, when she can reach out and touch buildings that are so much older than the Constitution.</p><p>She had been a little sad about leaving Mongolia, in all honesty. She felt like she had reached some sort of clarity, some sort of zen about everything, but she also knows that the remoteness of anything even resembling her old life had also helped to create an illusion of that. It’ll be good to test out her sense of clarity in the real world, and she misses other people. She misses her family. </p><p>Andy had been in contact with <em> the boys </em> and they were supposed to meet up later tonight, or tomorrow morning. Nile can’t wait. </p><p>Piazza San Marco is lazily sun-drenched on an unseasonably warm late fall afternoon, and the groups of tourists are sparse. She’s wandering after her late lunch, trying to commit it all to memory. She wonders if she could do a secret Instagram account. </p><p>Quiet conversation drifts from the small cafes in the arcade, little glimpses of life peeking out from under the arches, and Nile is just taking it all in. </p><p>She’s sitting on the stairs of the basilica, sketching aimlessly - more to have something to do with her hands, really, than anything else, she’s not really committed, but she thinks she’d like to sketch the view from here, the water, the gondolas, the church on the other side. She’s also considering what it would take to bully Andy into a ride in one of the gondolas. </p><p>She’s getting sleepy, from wandering the city all day. Andy might’ve had the right idea when she went back to the Airbnb for a nap. She takes one last look out over the water, and closes her notebook, packs it away. </p><p>She ducks under the arches for some shade and is considering buying something to drink for the walk home, when she hears what sounds like a familiar laugh. She turns, and spots who looks like Joe, but at first, she thinks she must’ve heard wrong. </p><p>It looks like Joe - although his hair is shorn a bit closer to his head, and he looks bulkier than when she last saw him, but she doesn’t think she’s wrong. But, it can’t be. Nicky isn’t there - instead, there’s a woman sitting next to him, their heads bent close together, faces almost touching, and Joe has a hand resting high on her thigh, thumb rubbing in small circles and rhythmically dipping under the hem of her short skirt. They’re talking quietly, Joe smiling and flicking his eyes to those red lips, and she can hear the soft voice of the woman, teasing, fond. </p><p>That would be bad enough, but as she approaches, Joe cups his other hand around the woman’s face and tilts it up, and then they’re kissing, deep and filthy, and Nile is - okay. She may not have known those two men for that long, in reality. But in all of Andy’s stories, there was Joe&amp;Nicky, Nicky&amp;Joe, more like a single name than two separate entities. </p><p>Andy had made it sound as if they were never apart for longer than a trip to the toilet, if it could be helped, and none of her stories ever included an ‘Oh and by the way, they have an open relationship’, so Nile is confused. And oddly kind of furious. Nicky, both as Nile had experienced him and in almost all of Andy’s stories, is ruthless but kind, and she doesn’t think that anyone deserves to be cheated on. </p><p>She finds herself next to Joe all of a sudden, and she taps him on the shoulder. </p><p>“Excuse me,” she says, “but what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” and then she punches his shoulder - it’s not enough to cause a scene, she thinks, certainly not enough to hurt him, but hopefully enough to get her point across. </p><p>Joe and the woman jump apart, and Joe looks <em> so </em>confused.</p><p>“What the - “ he says at first, a little pissed, and then, “Nile!” with so much warmth. </p><p>“Where’s Nicky?” She asks lowly, getting in his face as he gets to his feet, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing with this -” and she turns to gesture to the woman, and as she does, she gets a good look at her, and it’s - oh. </p><p>The woman - <em> Nicky </em> is sitting there, his hair long and neatly styled, his eyes lined in black, and mouth in red. He looks stricken, shrinking back into the chair. </p><p>“What the <em> fuck</em>,” Nile says, and Nicky swallows hard. </p><p>“Nile - uh. I’ll -” he says something to Joe in an Italian dialect that Nile doesn’t catch, and then he gets up, his heels clicking as he hurries off, shoulders hunched, hair billowing behind him. </p><p>So much for not causing a scene. </p><p>She turns back to Joe, and the warmth is gone from his eyes. </p><p>“You should sit,” he says, reaching for Nicky’s vacant chair and setting it down in front of her. </p><p>Nile sits. </p><p> </p><p>&amp; </p><p> </p><p>Joe orders her a lemonade, and they sit in icy silence until it arrives. Nile feels like all the heat she has soaked up throughout the day has left her body. </p><p>She stirs the lemonade with the straw, ice cubes clinking in the glass, and Joe is watching her closely. </p><p>“If you have a problem with this, you’re free to go hang out with Booker,” he finally says, but it doesn’t sound like an offer, exactly. </p><p>“I - I’m not even sure what. What this <em> is</em>,” she says, and the way Joe’s looking at her turns steely. </p><p>“Nicky. It’s just Nicky. <em> He </em> is just —- Nicky. Only, sometimes he wants to be a different Nicky. And enough people have been horrible to him because of that in our lives, and I will not tolerate it from you. Even if you’re family. <em> Especially </em> because you’re family.” Joe fishes his wallet from his pocket. </p><p>“No,” Nile says, “no I - it’s not that I -” She’s a little lost for words. She doesn’t mind. She isn’t narrow-minded, she doesn’t think, she just - was surprised, is all. </p><p>“Yes?” Joe says, raising an eyebrow and fishing out some cash. Nile feels wrong-footed and out of time, and she hates it. </p><p>“It took me by surprise, I guess,” she says, which just doesn’t cover it at all, not even a little.</p><p>Joe puts the cash under his saucer and takes a measured breath. </p><p>“I’m gonna go back now,” he says, “and you’re gonna sit here until you figure out that nothing has changed. What he is, <em> all </em> he is, he’s always been. All his long life, and certainly all the time you’ve known him. You just didn’t know this one little thing about him.” Joe’s eye contact is intense and Nile kind of wants to look away from it - she knows, however, how that would be perceived. </p><p>“If you come to any other conclusion than the fact that he is still Nicky, still your brother, still the kindest person this world has ever known —-“ Joe breaks the eye contact first, and Nile can’t help but be a little relieved for the two seconds before he turns back to her, eyes like flint. </p><p>“Join Booker in Paris, but don’t bother coming back with him,” he says, and Nile has a brief moment of vertigo, considering the rest of eternity stretching out before her - alone; before Joe puts a big, heavy, warm hand on her shoulder and leaves. </p><p> </p><p>&amp; </p><p> </p><p>It doesn’t take her long. It’s not like she has anything against this, no matter what, exactly, this is, but it does somewhat change her idea of Nicky. Nicky who can kill a man equally efficiently in hand-to-hand combat or from almost two miles away, who showed her how to wield a longsword --- but. Joe is right. He did all of that, but he was also - he was also —- she doesn’t know the right words to use. But he was both. At the same time. Had been both, the whole time, she just hadn’t known. He hadn’t changed. She just knew more. So why <em> should </em> her perception of him change? He was just - Nicky. As he’d always been, as she’s always known him. Soft-spoken, kind, generous with his time and everything else, and deeply, weirdly, intense underneath that. </p><p>It’s not like she thought she knew everything about him. Not even after all that Andy’s told her. It’s not like she thought it would even be possible to know him completely, after a millennium. Probably only Joe could. </p><p>She tries to get a firm grip and readjust her view on Nicky to include this, confirms with herself that he’s still Nicky and the person who’s been changed by this knowledge is her, finishes her lemonade. </p><p>Good timing, too. Andy texts to let her know that she’s got Nile’s stuff and the new address and that they expect her for dinner. Nile goes. </p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>It’s Andy who opens the door to her when she gets there, and Andy who shows her to a small room with a narrow bed and her pack leaning against the wall. There’s a door off the kitchen that’s closed, and she can hear quiet talking behind it, but Andy shakes her head when she catches Nile looking. </p><p>“I hope I wasn’t wrong about you,” is all she says, and closes the door behind her. </p><p>Nile sits on the bed. She doesn’t think she should unpack or make herself comfortable just yet, but she also doesn’t feel like she would be welcome anywhere else in the apartment. </p><p>After a while, there’s a soft knock on the door, and then Nicky’s voice on the other side.</p><p>“Can I come in?” he asks, and she almost trips over herself saying yes. </p><p>He opens the door, closes it softly behind him. Pads over and sits at the very edge of the bed. </p><p>His hair is tied back, his face clean, but his lips are still stained a little red, and traces of eyeliner cling to his lash-line. His hands, resting on his thighs, are tipped with blood-red fingernails, and when he catches her looking, he curls his hands into the long cuffs of the baggy sweater he’s wearing.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and oof, if Nile didn’t already feel terrible... </p><p>“We - I should have told you. I - but it’s.” he crosses his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits, his body held tight, but his eyes are steady and piercing.</p><p>“I am not ashamed. But it’s not for anyone else. It’s just - it’s just for me. Sometimes. And - it’s. Difficult to -“ he swallows and tries to smile but it looks strained. </p><p>“We’ve read a lot about -” he shrugs, “there are so many terms, now. We went to meetings. Lectures. Joe signs us up for every newsletter he finds.” He smiles a little, more genuine this time. </p><p>“All these new - all these words. All this—- mngh,“ he says, and gestures aimlessly, red nails sketching the air, “come si dice-“</p><p>“<em>Vocabulary</em>,” he settles on, “and yet… none of those words feel like they-“ he sighs, gestures more frustratedly this time. </p><p>“Hold me?” He rolls his eyes at himself, makes a little frustrated sound in the back of his throat. </p><p>“I am bad at explaining this. Maybe that’s why the words won’t - <em> fit </em> me.” He shrugs, a tight little movement, and puts a hand on the bed between them, slowly spreads his fingers, the red nails fanned out. </p><p>And maybe. Maybe in her own small way, she can understand him. </p><p><em>Immortal </em>seems like such a small word for what she is, now. It doesn’t feel adequate, doesn’t feel like it’s even a fraction of enough to describe the unknowable centuries - millennia? - that stretches out ahead of her. She can understand, she thinks, how words can feel lacking. Unable to contain you. </p><p>“But you know, Joe -” he catches her eye when she looks up from his hand, and his gaze feels heavy, weighted. </p><p>“He has never - in all the time we’ve known each other. Never once has he made me feel like it was something to be ashamed of. Something to hide.” He smiles a private little smile, cheeks going pink. </p><p>“And he likes my legs in skirts and heels,” he says, and then quickly looks away, deflating a little. </p><p>“Sorry,” he says, “ I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”</p><p>“I’m just Nicky,” he says, shrugging a little. “I don’t. All this time, we didn’t have the right words for it, and I’ve just been - just me. And I don’t. For me and Joe, we don’t need words for it. I just - like the way it makes me feel, sometimes.”</p><p>“How does it make you feel?” She asks, because that seems like an important question to ask, if she wants to understand. And she wants to understand. She wants to try. </p><p>He shrugs a shoulder, can’t meet her eyes. </p><p>“Safe?” he says, “I - it’s hard to explain. It makes me feel warm. I don’t - it’s not often that I need to feel the way it makes me feel. But - sometimes I do. Sometimes, nothing else helps. And - “ he takes a deep breath, and straightens a little, looks her straight in the eyes, unyielding. </p><p>“Nile,” he says, almost formally, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I refuse to hide who I am. I don’t want to hide from my family. I don’t want to feel like I have to be ashamed when it’s something that makes me feel at home in my skin.”  </p><p>“I’m sorry,” she says. She thinks she probably should’ve said that sooner. </p><p>“I - I never want you to feel like that. I was just caught off guard. I didn’t expect - but I don’t have anything against it. I want - I want to get to know you better. Like this, too.” More and more, Nile knows the feeling of words being inadequate. </p><p>“Grazie, Nile,” Nicky says, and he smiles when she dutifully says, “Prego,” back, that crooked little thing he does. The tension between them feels almost magically evaporated, and she’s so relieved. </p><p>“I haven’t - done this. In a long time,” he says, “I told you, it’s not often that I need or even want to, but. The last time was just before we found you,” he says, “Joe and I, we were in Amsterdam and I wanted to, and I thought it would be fine. But - we had a bad experience. There was a group of guys - “ He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. But I was. Pretty upset.” He says, and she kind of wishes he would tell her what happened, because her imagination is conjuring up all kinds of terrible scenarios. </p><p>“I cut all my hair off with the kitchen scissors,” he says, and fiddles with the length of his ponytail, “Joe was so upset,” he says ruefully, as if that’s the worst part of that story. </p><p>“So I think, earlier. Maybe the way we reacted - we’re both a little spooked since the last time.” his mouth twists a little, but he’s clearly not eager to dwell on the memory, and he leans closer and elbows her, teasingly. </p><p>“Thank you for sticking up for me, but you don’t have to worry. Joe would never be unfaithful.” He smiles. </p><p>“Come get some dinner,” he then says, and pulls her up and out into the kitchen, where Joe is getting something out of the oven that smells amazing, and she goes easily. </p><p>Both Andy and Joe eye her a little as they’re moving around in the kitchen, setting the table and getting drinks, but Nicky smiles at her and serves her first, and Andy starts telling them about Mongolia, and it feels - it feels a little bit like home. </p><p> </p><p>&amp; </p><p> </p><p>Nicky like this, she finds, seems to enjoy things that he otherwise doesn’t. Tight-fitting clothes, short skirts, draping himself over Joe as if there is no other furniture in the apartment. He spends time carefully styling his hair, and putting on makeup. He looks good like this, Nile can’t deny. She has eyes. </p><p>One afternoon she catches him, frowning at a YouTube video on contouring, and when she offers to teach him, he lights up in the sweetest way.  </p><p>Joe too, who always looks like a fucking anime character when he looks at Nicky, has a different look for this Nicky, she discovers, and it honestly should be obnoxious, but being this in love after 900 years, well. That’s an accomplishment. </p><p>With Nicky in his sky-high heels, Joe has to crane his neck back and look up at him, he even has to rise up a little on his toes when they kiss. And he looks so fucking smitten, like this is a honeymoon, and not their 900-whatever anniversary.</p><p>It’s sweet. It’s very them. And had it been anyone else than them, it maybe would’ve been a little much. </p><p>Maybe Nicky doesn’t have the words for it. Maybe he never will, but it doesn’t matter, Nile gets that. And she feels somehow fiercely protective towards this man and his happiness, not that he needs it. </p><p>She looks over to where Joe is carefully braiding Nicky’s long hair, Nicky leaning back against Joe with his eyes closed. Maybe it doesn’t hold the same weight as it used to, but Nile is willing to defend this with her life. </p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>And then, a few days later, it’s over. </p><p>That morning, when Nile is finally lured into the kitchen by the smell of a hot breakfast cooking, Nicky is standing by the stove in too big jeans and a shirt she thinks must be Joe’s. His long hair has been wrangled into a sloppy kind of bun, and his nails are short and polish-less. </p><p>“Hey Nile,” he says, when he spots her, and she yawns. </p><p>“Hey,” she says, and something must read on her face because he shrugs easily and stirs the pan. </p><p>“Back to stealing Joe’s clothes,” he says, and as if summoned by his name, Joe comes out of their room, apparently barely awake. </p><p>“Mm,” he says, as he hugs Nicky around the middle, hooks his chin over Nicky’s shoulder, and inhales deeply.</p><p>“Nicolò. Shakshuka. Allah has truly blessed me like no other.” </p><p>Nicky shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but his cheeks still pink up as he turns his head to meet Joe in a kiss. </p><p>Andy comes out of her room, no more awake than Joe, but she grunts and turns back around when she sees them. </p><p>“Call me when it’s ready!” she says before kicking her bedroom door closed.  </p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>Joe and Nicky leave after breakfast, and when they come back, Nicky’s had a haircut. His long, sleek hair is gone, but it’s nothing like the uneven and short hack-job he’d had when she first met them. </p><p>Joe sets the tray of coffees on the kitchen table and tucks a strand of hair behind Nicky’s ear, and Nicky blushes a little, ducking his head as he fusses with opening the bags of pastry. His hair is almost chin-length, longer in the back and curling a little. It looks fluffy and very touchable. </p><p>Joe murmurs something in Nicky’s ear, and the way he looks at him is - Nile thinks maybe this new haircut is. A compromise, sort of. </p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>Andy joins them at the promise of pastries, and she ruffles Nicky’s hair when she sees him, and he beams at her. </p><p>“You know,” Joe says, leaning back with his coffee, “one of the times Nicky died, it was actually because the makeup was toxic.” </p><p>Nicky groans and hides his face in his hands. </p><p>“We were living in London in the early 1900s, and we were trying to be inconspicuous, so we lived as man and wife.”</p><p>“The veils and hats helped,” Nicky says, “but the Arsenic wafers were a bad idea.”</p><p>“The what now?” Nile asks, and Nicky chuckles. </p><p>“Yeah, these little - they were called complexion wafers. You ate them, for better skin. They were full of arsenic.” </p><p>He gives her ‘what can you do’ look, and Andy says, “I also can’t recommend that you powder your nose with lead-based powder-”</p><p>“And who could’ve known using mercury as lipstick would be harmful?” Joe says. </p><p>“My hair fell out,” Nicky said mournfully, but then they’re all laughing. Nile’s life is surreal. She’s happy to share it with these people. </p><p> </p><p>&amp;  </p><p> </p><p>Much later, in between missions in Berlin, Joe is acting more protective of Nicky than usual. Nile notices but doesn’t really think anything of it; it had been a pretty rough mission, and drawn-out too, and Nicky had taken the brunt of it, so it only makes sense. </p><p>She also has other things on her mind. She looks at her clothes and weighs her options; she wants to go out tonight. She wants to dance and drink and maybe practice her German on a local in a more private setting, and she’s heard great things about the Berlin nightlife. </p><p>She’s googling intently - she can’t pick her outfit before knowing where she’s going, she reasons, when Andy sits next to her and shamelessly reads over her shoulder. </p><p>“You should ask Joe,” she says, shoveling cheesecake into her mouth. Nile looks at her, puzzled. </p><p>“Joe’s superpower,” Andy says, laughing a little, “is sniffing out the best parties, and getting on the guest list. Hey, we should all go, if you don’t mind.”</p><p>Nile doesn’t, and true to Andy’s word, Joe manages to find a promising party in an above-ground bunker. </p><p>“It used to be a club, and a sex club, after the war, and it’s currently a private art collection, but for one night, it’s a club again,” Joe says in the U-Bahn, grinning at Nile. He’s wearing eyeliner and skin-tight jeans, and Nicky’s been completely unable to keep his hands off him. </p><p>“It used to be a warehouse for exotic fruits, too,” Andy says, and nods her head towards Nicky and Joe, “and for one night-” Nicky elbows her, laughing. </p><p>Nicky’s wearing ripped jeans and a tight, sheer, black sweater, and like Joe, he’s wearing eyeliner, but also a deep, dark red lipstick. </p><p>Nile has been researching, educating herself, and she can’t help but think that maybe the lipstick is a concession to this. She catches Nicky’s eyes and they smile at each other. </p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>Nile has certainly never been to a party like this before, but the bass rattles her bones and the drinks are strong, and everyone seems to just be out for a good time. </p><p>She lost Andy to a tall blonde, and Nicky and Joe are dancing in a way that would be indecent, if everyone else weren't doing the exact same. </p><p>Nile is making headway with a guy who is only in Berlin for this party but has his own hotel room, which is promising, but as they’re leaning close by the bar after getting up close on the dancefloor, Nicky is suddenly there, grabbing Nile’s drink from her hand, and splashing it in the guy’s face, and then grabbing him by the throat. </p><p>The guy splutters as Joe pulls Nile away, saying, “We saw him put something in your drink-” and then there’s the sound of a scuffle behind them. </p><p>Nile catches a glimpse of the guy over her shoulder, clutching one hand to his nose, and one to his groin, and a security guy moving through the crowd to the bar. Nicky’s running up to them, trying to look inconspicuous. </p><p>Andy’s waiting outside with their jackets and she’s laughing a little. </p><p>“Now you’re really one of us, kid,” she says, “once you’ve had uncle Nicky defend your honor.” </p><p>Nicky glowers. ”It’s not funny,” he says, “men like that-”</p><p>“Oh I know, I know,” Andy says, “and we’ll report him to the polizei tomorrow. You got his ID, right?”</p><p>Nicky holds up a battered leather wallet and winks at her. </p><p>“Looks like ---” Nicky opens the wallet, “hmmm, Max Langer will buy our, uh - spuntino a tarda notte,” he says, and “and I don’t think anyone will take that guy home tonight other than the guards. Joe told the bartender what he was up to.”</p><p>Joe slings an arm around him, kissing him on the cheek. “My hero,” he says, and it sounds entirely sincere. </p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>Joe insists they pick up their late-night snack at Burgeramt on the way back, because he appreciates both burgers and puns, and as they’re sitting in the living room, stuffing their faces and smelling like smoke machine fluid, it’s also Joe who breaks the silence. </p><p>“You know,” he says slowly, thoughtfully chewing a fry, “we’re not that far from Paris.”</p><p>Nile looks at him. Andy stops chewing for a fraction of a second. Nicky is plowing through his burger as if he didn’t even hear Joe, but Nile has no doubt that the two of them have talked this over. </p><p>Joe had been the one to argue for 100 years. Joe had been adamant, had argued against Andy and Nicky that this was what Booker had deserved - for betraying his family, for the torture Joe had watched Nicky go through, for what had happened with Keane. </p><p>At the time, none of them had mentioned the fact that 100 years of exile meant that Andy would die without seeing Booker again. </p><p>Nile had brought it up, after a year in the Mongolian wilderness, and Andy had looked at her, steadfast and fond, and said, “I’m not worried about that. I’ll see him again.” </p><p>“Yeah?” Nile had said, dubiously, and Andy had smiled wider at her, clapping her on her shoulder. </p><p>“I have faith. Joe’ll come around. He loves Book like a brother, and they fight like brothers too. This is one of their worse arguments because Nicky got hurt, but he’ll miss him before too long. You’ll see.” </p><p>“You’re right,” Andy says, and stands and wipes her hands on her jeans, “less than two hours by plane. I know a guy who can fly us out from Tempelhof, probably.” </p><p>Nile already knows enough to be wary of Andy’s guy and also the <em> ‘probably’</em>, but neither Nicky nor Joe seem worried. </p><p>“Tomorrow?” Nicky asks, and Andy nods, decisively. </p><p>“Let’s get some sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll go get our boy.” </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I miss traveling. (And Five Elephant cheesecake.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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